They barely even fact checked him in the first place. They called him on a total of, what, three things? As opposed to the probably dozens of other complete untruths he uttered, not even just about policy and so forth but actual empirically verifiable elements of reality?
Here's just what I spotted:
Lied about not being involved with Project 2025 and not knowing what it is. We know he is acutely aware of what it is, and in fact some members of his staff were involved in its framing.
Lied about the number of immigrants coming into the country.
Further lied stating that other countries were "sending all their criminals and mental patients."
Claimed people were "aborting" babies after birth (called out by moderators).
Claimed Harris said she would ban fracking in Pennsylvania (called out by Harris).
Lied about crime rates going "through the roof" (called out by moderators).
Responded to this by claiming FBI crime stats were falsified by "leaving out problem cities."
Lied about migrants eating people's pets (called out by moderators).
Lied about inflation numbers post-pandemic.
Lied claiming that "Biden" built the Nordstream pipeline.
Distorted the truth by claiming he won more votes than any sitting president in the last election, failing to mention that Biden still got more.
There were probably others.
He also essentially admitted that his plan for the war in Ukraine was to just let Russia win. That should be pretty damn worrisome for anyone.
Lied about Kamala being a Border Czar. She led a diplomatic initiative aimed at curbing immigration, she was never directly involved in border matters.
Lied about how much aid the US is giving Ukraine and how others are not. Lied about how the aid is given (it's in US made products not in Cash, the money stays in the US).
I wish they had pushed him harder on the simple yes or no questions.
Also, Harris missed a perfect opportunity to point out that Trump has been the only president that has advocated a gun ban. "take the guns and figure out due process later"
The yes/no about "should Ukraine win the war" he wouldn't answer anything except that he would end the war. He would just give up Ukraine to Russia to end it, though, and he didn't want to say that on TV.
"Everyone says it, you know Trump really is a genius, they say it. I've read all the best books: the Hungry Caterpillar, Green Eggs and Ham, Goodnight Moon. I'm the biggest read person in the country. They say this. The Giving Tree. I hated that book, communist propaganda! Kambala probably wrote it."
That's true on a technicality, but everyone knows what he meant. In the 2020 election, Biden got ~7 million more votes than Trump in addition to winning the electoral college. Trump's intent was to be intentionally misleading and to twist the qualifications to imply that he should have won last time when, in fact, he didn't.
It's a sobering detail of our situation. In 2020, Trump really did receive more votes than any candidate in any previous election. That means a ton of people showed up to vote for him in 2020 that hadn't in 2016.
He frames it weird (and it sounded weird when he said it) because otherwise it raises the obvious point that Biden also achieved that same record, plus an extra 7 million votes.
True, although population growth is a factor as well.
Like, it wouldn't be surprising to see more total votes than in 1990, just because there's a lot more people. Let alone 1890. The "most ever" has pretty declining meaning after going back just a couple of decades.
I agree. It’s technically true but intentionally misleading. That said, I think there are other, better examples to label as lies that don’t get into this gray area.